More of The Last of Us, Part II! I'm in Seattle, day one; I've just gone through the hotel.



I'm very charmed and slightly heartbroken by the fact that Ellie drew a picture of Joel and he framed it and put it on his mantelpiece.

I was also very struck by Ellie's attempt to draw Joel in her journal, after his death, where she couldn't get his eyes right and ended up scribbling them out.

WHAT THE FUCK, THE LIGHT REFLECTS OFF THE BRUSHSTROKES IN THIS IN-GAME OIL PAINTING

Joel's house has a lot of paintings of horses. Although it's still not the most horse-filled house I've ever been in, which had over a hundred representations of horses on the ground floor alone.

Dina speculates on who Abby might have been and why she might have wanted to kill Joel; Ellie says that Joel crossed a lot of people and there's no point in wondering. Ellie is on a revenge mission herself, but she's not interested in the cause of the revenge mission that sparked it off.

This scene in the music shop is so lovely! Is it completely missable? What??

From what I heard about the game pre-release, I was a little afraid it wouldn't have any of the quiet, beautiful moments that the original Last of Us did so well. I'm very glad to have been wrong. It seemed like a lot of people were going 'prepare for RELENTLESS MISERY', but the misery is not in fact relentless. 'Large quantities of misery with occasional moments of warmth' is a tone that tends to work well for me.

That said, WHAT ARSEHOLE DESIGNED THIS GUITAR INTERFACE

WHY MAKE Em, C AND G EASY TO SWITCH BETWEEN BUT MAKE ME HIT L1 TWICE IF I WANT TO PLAY A D

Just found a note that a bank might be filled with 'pre-outbreak supplies' and 'if there are enough weapons in there, I know some guys that we can trade with'. Would pre-outbreak supplies in a bank... include... weapons? I suppose this is America.

I FOUND NATE'S RING IN THE BANK

I FOUND NATE'S RING

I WROTE A FIC WHERE NATE AND ELLIE MET AND HE GAVE ELLIE HIS RING

AND NOW ELLIE CANONICALLY HAS NATE'S RING

If you'd told me, 'Hey, this game is going to make a detail from one of your fics canonical,' I would not have expected that one.

Ellie's scribbled-out 'Did I make it worse for Joel, being there?' in her diary is UNBEARABLE.

I don't understand why I can't stroke the horse.

I reluctantly went 'I GUESS I'll enter the courthouse and actually get the petrol I need to progress, but what if I've missed out on some important arsing around?' and then entered the courthouse and got the 'you visited every downtown location!' trophy. Apparently I am very good at arsing around!



I'm glad Naughty Dog went 'hey, you love this hugely popular, critically acclaimed game? you want to play the sequel? cool, you're playing as a lesbian' - it's a great poke in the eye for certain segments of gamers, and hopefully it'll embolden other developers and publishers.